Curses!

not everything is selling...but everything has a price

but everything has a price."

Like Congress?

Now I'd buy one of the live work lofts in a heartbeat. Just relocate it to midtown Sacramento and offer them at less then a quarter of their list price in SD and I'll be there with the checkbook.

Ask over 300k and they will sit vacant as we already have plenty like that, sitting vacant too. The smart money in town is waiting for more CRE to go tits up. That's how you traditionally get live/work lofts and I'm ok with waiting for mine. I need something in town when I'm not visiting my 5.2 acres >; )

I didn't get an answer in the last thread, but is anyone aware of a data source for rail freight cost? I like the Railfax linked a couple of threads ago, but I'd really be interested in something similar to the Baltic for rail freight. Or does someone know if it's acceptable to extrapolate from the Baltic to the rail freight story?

Every road in this part of SoCal is under repair... Needed or not. All have stimulus banners posted.

Wow, is he back from Cambodia already?

And they will dryfly...they will.
People will be flocking like to Woodstock in the summer of...69.
Was it 69?

I drove through Tiajuana last weekend. It is truly the third world next door. It amazes me MX can't monitize Baja. We spent three days and just 8 dollars (tolls).

video location 6511 Avenida Encinas, Carlsbad, San Diego, California 92011, United States - Google Maps

$ for fine arts majors to purchase lofts in SD.

pay off their student loans while you're at it.

revolution: six months

Comrade Elmer Fudd wrote:

revolution: six months

Who is rebelling: the banks or the FA majors?

t-baggers i guess

we'll see how that goes

Gezz ya think we are on 14 baud....slooowwwwwwwwwwww

So CR you are optimistic we will hit 100?

did dawg get into the testicular prosthetics?

$400K to live arcoss the street from $1K/month apartments. And some people say the bubble has burst. Not here.

I ride the Coaster and these condos are a long way from the station. Its a very strange development choice. The condos will only appeal to people who ride the Coaster to San Diego. People who ride the Coaster every day aren't looking for a work/live loft. Houses or standard condos would have made a lot more sense.

EHP - A Cdn friend has started a blog called theinsurancestandard...it should be way cool

It's also apparently always sunny in greater San Diego

IMO, San Diego has the best overall weather in the entire country.

Deflationary Jane wrote:

Just relocate it to midtown Sacramento and offer them at less then a quarter of their list price in SD and I'll be there with the checkbook.

Just wait for those 1600 H st places to come back on the market. The whole thing went back to the bank in September for $6 million. 41 units!

Oxtail wrote:

IMO, San Diego has the best overall weather in the entire country.

Ehhhh, solid second.

Looking at the area map, I dislike all the frivolous windy dead end cul de sacs. The bike lane and commuter train is positive, but the downside of the nearby coast is that the development is hemmed in on the other side by the freeway. The sum of development done in big blocks, without any consideration as to how all those blocks are supposed to fit together. There are a lot of items you could check off for liking no matter your preference, but they are somehow all simultaneously out of context.

mannfm11 wrote:

If it comes, the value of these assets will collapse due to the interest rates alone.

Tease. I keep reading about this deflation that will , but all I have is a stupid 10k DOW hat and underwater SRS to show for it.

Oxtail wrote:

IMO, San Diego has the best overall weather in the entire country.

Too many harmful UV rays, not enough rain

Tommy Ceez wrote:

He said 700-800
400 was his SUGGESTION

Yep. And it's still a lot to pay for an exurban townhome development with no shops adjacent to low income apartments. When they're going for $200K, then maybe the market has over corrected.

What is a coaster writer?

Coaster rider. The Coaster is the wannabe commuter rail line.

A $1000/month rent is a low income apartment. Wow!

When I moved up here, I turned down a 3 bedroom condo with hot tub and fireplace (and decent square footage and roughly 10-year-old construction) for $900 month, because it was more than I wanted to spend.

You sure know how to tease a girl! I'm also looking at 18th and L but only to rent.

Those homes aren't worth 400k. Have to drive everywhere any time you leave the front door. Few business/entertainment options nearby. It's in a suburb apparently 30min by car / 3h by transit from downtown San Diego, but I don't know how that holds in rush hour or when there are accidents on the freeway. I know it's all about what's relative, but 250k for those houses is probably what their base price will be. Encinitas and Del Mar are not only closer, they have a much better layout
edit: I'll revise that upwards to $300k if employment holds up City of Carlsbad - Income and Employment
However, I am extremely skeptical all those roads and utilities can be maintained at a reasonable price. Layout is too inefficient. If taxes weren't already high, they should/will be

i got a suspension ad,a yahoo auto ad and i can own gold for $329 or something like that,an ounce.
so is it going to be 100 or 99B tomorrow?

?

SALT LAKE CITY – Closing Utah state offices on Fridays has delivered an unexpected bonus: a big saving on overtime pay. New calculations show Utah saved $4.1 million in the first year of a government experiment with a four-day workweek. State employees were eager to leave after the longer workday, and weren't inclined to work an extra hour or two. "They're getting what they need to get done in 10 hours and going home," said Angie Welling, spokeswoman for Gov. Gary Herbert.

Basel Too wrote:

true, when the liabilities are treasuries. but what happens when the Fed guarantees $30B of Bear Stearns' book, and the liabilities default (e.g. Extended Stay)? for all intent and purposes, Maiden Lane is naked money printing.

Exactly. And it can continue at least until we start seeing some serious bond auction failures.

2 of the biggest employers in Carlsbad on that list that I checked have laid of 10-15% of their workforce this year (Callaway and Taylormade golf). I'm sure others on that list have or are prepared to do more layoffs, so I think that $92k median household income has probably fallen since 2007. Revise that back to $250k

basel too
where is this strange place?

@ Rob Dawg, Yagij - Thanks for the email, sorry I didn't get back. I don't read that account too often any more as it gets too much spam. I still think a location tag would be good, or maybe signatures.

apparently so.

although at least at the federal level govt seems to have morphed into an arm of the real estate sector.

Ok anyone know who is selling this out in the foothills for 20 million?
MLS#: 80057300

Bought MX insurance through my local Allstate agent. I was really referring to dollars spent in the local economy.

ga driver license depts were closed today due to furlough state wide.

EvilHenryPaulson wrote:

Does anyone remember why Sheila Bair denied Wal-Mart a bank? I wonder if she regrets it

I was wondering the same thing lately - walked by the 'customer service' area [I know oxymoron @ wally but go with it]... and they had an in-house 'money services desk' right there... selling pre-paid and closed end debit cards... plus rented a suite to a local bank. They are really itching for one. Personally I suspect it might be to better beat up on their suppliers [especially offshore] but can't say for sure.

You have an opinion on this?

What will happen to the...Shadow Inventory? Holding it back delays price discovery. With the pipeline so full of foreclosures, there's no way a Bottom could come in 2 years presuming the economy doesn't just do a nosedive. Buying now in Nevada, CA, AZ, Michigan, Ohio, or Georgia where negative equity is so high would seem very careless IMO and risky for the buyer's down payment (if they can get a mortgage loan) until a price discovery point is certain...calling a Bottom any time soon would be a sales agent perspective. It's always fun to look though!

Merchant,

In Sacramento county on 10-20-09, I show that 148 homes were foreclosed on. 10-21-09 was a slow day at 55. I normally only look at 95616,95618, 95818 and 95819 but if you run the service for the whole Sac for just foreclosures for just a single day... even i didn't know it was that bad and I'm the Sac RE perma-bear.

scone wrote:

Cities have to grow organically. These are imitation, fake cities.

And once they are built can you imagine them 'evolving' to meet the times? Covenants & all? I don't. They are like time capsules.

Not buying, leasing. Have to be a
MX citizen to purchase otherwise 100 year lease is the only option. Which is a big part of the problem

Comrade Elmer Fudd wrote:

don't hear anybody else advocating revolution

[Obama's] economic team of free market billionaires and financial hotwires includes most of those who helped Bill Clinton sell the theory that Americans didn't need jobs. Actual labor, if you will remember, was for Asian sweatshops and Latin maquiladoras.

We, as a nation one third of whose population is functionally illiterate, were going to transmute ourselves into an information and transactional economy.

Ain't gonna sweat no mo' no mo' -- just drink wine and sing about Jesus all day.
-Joe B

EvilHenryPaulson wrote:

I don't see why Wal-Mart shouldn't have a bank.

Other than they are the Peoples Republic of China's Company Store?

Deflationary Jane,
Buying in suburbs with increasing foreclosures and 'pre-foreclosures' is so risky because you wouldn't know how the area will turn out even within one year as more foreclosures leave vacant houses and neglected houses and as more 'foreclosure deals' are bought...how many renters vs. 'home owners' will end up in your neighborhood...not that renters will make bad neighbors but the neighborhood will have a 'turnover' of residents...the idea of a community may be lost...also what if your supermarket and favorite restaurant 'leave' the neighborhood. Imagine buying near a mall that has numerous vacancies...

Merchants google ladera ranch

= GS

Inside The Great American Bubble Machine : Rolling Stone

The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.

"Resist the temptation of short-term goals?!?"

COMMIE!

Next thing you know, you'll be advocating Wall St bonus pay tied to long-term performance.

And you know GS has lost the PR battle when they are the bad guys & WalMart is the good guys. Of course GS probably doesn't care - it has 536 close friends and that's all it needs.

nowhereman wrote:

I'd gladly live in a community where my needs are met within walking distance.

Call the folks in in the vid - I don't think they all sold.

Gladly, if I only had the resources, WAIT, that's right I don't need to be able to pay to buy real estate, What was I thinking!

The argument against Wal-Mart having a bank is the argument against company towns. In a lot of areas, Wal-Mart is the economy. The local banks would be under incredible stress if Wal-Mart came in. There is also just something unsavory about buying your mortgage, your dish soap, and your food at the same place.

More specifically, I believe Wal-Mart can't do banking due to some arcana about holding companies and significant non--banking operations or something like that.

badger wrote:

The local banks would be under incredible stress if Wal-Mart came in.

Ya its okay to throttle all the businesses in town but not the bank. Hey who are those banks gonna have for customers after that? A bunch of WalMart greeters? Maybe the greeters can live in the WalMart - then it would be a live work 'multi-use facility' like the folks in the video... except not quite.

Been fun...

dryfly wrote:

They'd WalMartize the industry...

That appeals to me. If it would not be such a hardship for the smaller local guys. But even then they might make out OK. If Wal*Mart were to crush the BoAs and Wells Fargos... and their crazy fees... that would be delicious. Sears has a financial services arm, why not Wally?

the FDIC didn't deny WalMart's ILC charter; it voluntarily withdrew the FDIC application when it realized that it could operate in the non-bank bank space (mortgages, consumer finance, etc) without the political bulls-eye and regulation, although this meant it could not become its own payments-system processor (credit cards, checks, etc). previously, it had tried to acquire a small state bank to save on those interchange fees, but those plans were shelved when Gramm-Leach-Bliley kept the BHCA's prohibition on non-financial companies (especially retail outfits) owning commercial banks.

Oxtail,
Unpaid HOA fees are a problem in developments especially where the developer ended buying some of their own inventory to complete a project (and maybe rented the purchased inventory) and then later become insolvent while not paying HOA fees for months or years on end. Then foreclosures come to the units the developer can't sell and are rentals leaving the HOA deep in the hole on their budget.

Looks like Ladera Ranch has a 'Maintenance Corporation' for 'Aesthetic Standards'. The idea behind 'standards' is to protect property values. Good concept but in this market, values will fall even in a 'self-contained' community like Ladera Ranch. (Is it down 40%?) Retailers in these developments will be hit hard too.

There's something almost mythical about small banks in America
I don't see the difference between having one company employ and serve an entire town, than one where a single family or small network of friends does the same. If they are doing something undesirable from that position, it should be prevented through regulation. That way a loved version of Wal-Mart doesn't sneak in and do the same things you were afraid Wal-Mart might do. The key part of a company town was that the company was not only the base of employment, or that they were the dominant purveyor of goods, but that they had complete freedom to fix prices, violently bust unions, and other uncompetitive behavior. Businesses of any stripe should only be allowed to maintain their privileged position so long as they continue to earn it. If it's concentration in banking that is the concern, then I would suggest some general limit on how large the largest banks can be.
I seem to remember that the big banks were the ones who successfully influenced the FDIC to block Wal-Mart's application, which is disconcerting because of the obvious conflict of interest. It may have also been an easy way out for the FDIC that avoided the tough question of how well the existing banking market functioned
edit: see Basel Too's above post for the answer to WMT's bank application

Wonder if CFD foreclosures In CA are very common now since banks are dragging their feet?

badger wrote:

Why would you expect WalMart to have a lower cost of money that BoA or Wells?

Use your Wally Card at the register and save 1-3%?

I was referring to the more boring ratio of how much it costs a bank to make a loan or hold your money.

Gold is going mainstream. I personally don't think its run is over.

Pension Funds to Buy Gold as Insurance, McGuire Says (Update2) - Bloomberg.com

... Gold represents only 0.4 percent of total global financial assets valued at around $200 trillion in 2007, McGuire said, adding the future focus for the metal was investment demand.

“The interest in the gold sector continues to be strong,” said Stephen Goodman, investment banker with New York-based Casimir Capital L.P. “We are pleased to connect a growing number of institutional investors globally with opportunities.”

badger,
synergy. All the other banks have huge expenses to run their overbuilt network of branches. Wal-Mart already has the retail space. Their out of store service would be with ABMs. Their lending would be directed with the top down management powered by massive databases and statisticians that wal-mart is famous for. Being able to process payments itself would save a lot of money. You can bet it would make the best use of low marginal cost, self-service like the internet

POIC is correct. I expect to be part of a class action group within the next 10 years

SEC missed the fraud...now 2 victims sue the SEC...should get interesting...
CompliancEX: SEC Sued by Madoff Investors for Missing Scheme

RE
Even if it was written in COBOL, there was an explicit choice made to sort the transactions in the exact order to produce the biggest overdraft. If they still have mission critical system written in COBOL, they should be ordered to reinvest their profits in any case. I know someone who made big money around Y2K transitioning code from COBOL to C (not sure about the new language). He had written software to automatically do most of the work and made millions. There is literally no excuse for it to be in place.

and honestly. processing transactions only once a day. holding transfers or checks for multiple days?
welcome to the early 1970s. it's shameful

"and honestly. processing transactions only once a day. holding transfers or checks for multiple days?
welcome to the early 1970s. it's shameful"

every bank and brokerage co. makes significant profits off the float via holding checks as long as legally permissible.

EHP,

Just look at the few COBOL facts below. That's not something that can be replaced quickly at all. COBOL will be a fact of life for a long time to come.

Just a few COBOL facts:

20 Things You Might Not Know About COBOL (as the Language Turns 50) - Enterprise Applications from eWeek

• $2 trillion in total investment in COBOL systems
• 5 billion lines of new COBOL code every year
• More than 80% percent of all daily business transactions are processed in COBOL

I do believe that most final transaction posting happens in banks still in the batch window. Note that I haven't worked with banks in a decade but I simply cannot imagine that they replaced a large number of these systems.

The batch window still rules in most of the largest corporations. It is far too expensive to replace these systems in short order.

RE
Many of those systems do not need to be recoded. In a way they are designed to die. They can just be replaced by newer systems when the time comes. The financial sector has the money to spend on any upgrades necessary -- well maybe not anymore, but bonuses are at record levels fwiw. The reason why they haven't is because not only would that investment cost money up front, it would lower the barriers to entry and increase competition. This is exactly the situation where the regulator needs to step up and move things forward

Peoples Republic of China's Company Store

That says it all.

It's even funnier if you call customer service (mine's JPM/C) - they'll tell you they process debits from greatest to least as a service to the customer. So, you know, the "big, important" debits are paid first. The manager I was talking to said, "Because you wouldn't want to bounce your mortgage payment, would you?" Seriously. I think he believed it.
Sorry to go Godwin on y'all, but I used to wonder how the German population followed their government into the bestial abyss. After dealing with bank employees, I totally get it.

EvilHenryPaulson wrote:

Why invest in the computing time to rearrange transactions from FIFO? It's not accidental design, or a requirement of the technology

That is not my contention. I am saying the architecture stemmed from the batch period. Giving the architecture, sorting in the order that is most convenient AND profitable is trivial.

Why was a system designed to deduct charges based on amount rather than date.?

The only reason that comes to my mind is proft.

I can tell you that as a developer when I design such a system by default I query by date ascending unless explicitly required otherwise in a design document.  As a developer that is the most logical way to pull data out.

Given that multiple banks all designed systems that from scratch deducted charges based on amount rather than date the only motive that comes to mind is maximizing profit.

I just saw an article about the local convention center's sweet communications setup, and it reminded me about complaints at CES in Las Vegas due to visa/customs problems. Anyways, I found a new internet pass-time: For Meeting Planners > Convention Calendar - LVCVA.com
Looking through the list of conventions in Las Vegas
LV had 151,000 hotel rooms according to a 2007 NYT piece, with probably another 10-20k under construction
few places can handle the big ones like Vegas can, but nationally with all the empty hotels, tightened expense accounts, and concern for 'optics' I could see other locales picking off the newly smaller conventions

EvilHenryPaulson wrote:

No one but you has brought up batch processing. We're all talking about how banks have deliberately chosen to manipulate the processing of transactions to extract the most profit while pretending it is legal

Once you process transactions in batch, the process is just about always preceded by a sort. At that point "They process transactions at the end of day." becomes a given. The statement* "Not in the order they occurred, but sorted by the largest credits first." *becomes a pure matter of the sort sequence and "There is no reason for that other than fishing for overdraft charges." is very easily explained away because the system architecture does not prioritize by time naturally.

But now I leave for sure.

RE,
I'm sorry, you have actually programmed a bank's systems and I have not come near that in my experience. I think we've probably just got a bit of miscommunication somewhere between us. If you care to elucidate the next time we see each other, I'll just listen. I'm shutting it down for tonight

Interested in check clearing - check out the Check 21 Act.

EHP - Thank you. Good link!
.
soooo, if the Fed Reserve buys $1T/year, they basically capture it all.
At $1T/ year, they could keep a bubble going a long long time, no?

One of my projects was a batch process to handle financial transactions

It communicated with a mainframe via web services.

The sort order was specified in the requirements doc on both my end and the mainframe end.

Granted i didn't work on the mainframe side and I don't know COBOL.  But color me skeptical that financial considerations weren't the primary consideration for sorting by amount in descending order.  Our mainframe transactions had no problem specifying a complex sort order.

Descending order would need to be explicitly specified as sort orders are by default ascending. 

Something doesn't pass the smell test here.

poic
I'm of the same mind on the matter. For that matter I don't think RE disagrees either
It's one of the few cut and dry issues in the financial system. Surprised it doesn't get addressed in the CFPA

Must read.

Are the Fed, the Congress and the Primary Dealers an Alliance of Convenience?

1] The entire domestic mortgage market
2] New mortgage origination

Help! is CR down? Blogger died? I go to CR on the web and get this:

We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request.

When reporting this error to Blogger Support or on the Blogger Help Group, please:

* Describe what you were doing when you got this error.
* Provide the following error code and additional information.

bX-59cppw
Additional information
host: Calculated Risk

uri: /

This information will help us to track down your specific problem and fix it! We apologize for the inconvenience.

you aren't the only one getting the error

ditto

These are not designed systems.
They've been organically grown over decades.
They are holistic, often undocumented and more fragile than you might think.

Another reason why America is losing jobs that won't come back:

OP-ED COLUMNIST; The New Untouchables - NY Times 

A more detailed treatment (and more shocking) is here in an 8 min video:

The Fischbowl: Did You Know? 2.0

Well Jim should consider buying some inexpensive property around Franklin VA

Franklin (Virginia) paper mill will close in spring

The plant's closure will deal a sharp blow to Isle of Wight, which will lose its second-largest employer and more than a quarter of its tax base. The company is by far the county's largest taxpayer, doling out $5.7 million in property and equipment taxes in 2009, more than double the $2.3 million paid by Isle of Wight's second-largest taxpayer, Smithfield Foods Inc., said Commissioner of Revenue Gerald Gwaltney.
The plant's demise comes at a tumultuous time for Isle of Wight, which already is facing the closure of a Smithfield Foods packing plant around the end of the year, resulting in a loss of more than 600 jobs.

"County officials were stunned by the news, which they said they didn't learn of until an hour before the company's formal announcement at 11 a.m. "

**andthe BEST part:***

"Bradshaw said he was shocked by the announcement. Just last week, he said, he attended a quarterly community meeting where company officials were discussing long-term plans."

Yogi, I've been following the ARS mess for a couple of years (not an investor-just onlooker). I can't wait for NJ taxpayers to get a load of THIS. They aren't alone of course. School districts around the nation had 'financial advisors' on interest rate swaps and bond swaps, etc. Munis so royally cooked, my hometown hospital, the largest in a rural region, had a bond crisis last year requiring my doc to leave (she's a working schmuck) to tend to 'billing issues' during my appt, it was so 'urgent'. Wow STAT used to mean for patient care only!! Its particularly upsetting and enraging for those of us who exclusively fund education in states via property taxation alone.

I got really into a more academic understanding of economics over commodities (also not invested except I buy energy to live my puny life), Hank Greenburgers testimony before congress and the "Enron loophole". There is an interesting retrospective about on the net regarding him and some others that got a big fat SOCK put in their mouths. I think a reporter on the ARS mess at Bloomberg did too.

I've been OCD about it ever since. Just when I think I have a handle on it, something 'new' appears that taken alone would blow up the whole economy. I'm really glad I was directed here by a friend whose taught me volumes about economics as I continue to read and learn (and try not to get bald in the process).

RATM wrote:

GDP fell 0.4 percent from the previous three months, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. Economists predicted a 0.2 percent increase

If only they weren't capping the salaries of their economists they could afford to hire away some of our economists and turn those numbers around.

In other news is not going to be riding the interwebz into our homes: Traffic falls at many top electronics e-retailers, Nielsen reports | InternetRetailer.com - Daily News

The top multi-category computers and electronics online shopping destinations in September with unique visitors in millions this year and last and growth from prior year, according to Nielsen Online, were:

* Best Buy, 14.51, 13.53, 7%
* eBay Electronics, 4.59, 8.02, -43%
* Gamestop.com, 3.70, 3.19, 16%
* OSTG, 3.41, 4.57, -25%
* Tiger Direct, 3.15, 3.36, -6%
* Newegg.com, 3.09, 3.28, -6%
* Circuit City, 2.16, 9.83, -78%
* eBay Computers, 1.99, 4.29, -53%
* Sony, 1.63, 1.59, 3%
* Samsung, 1.35, 1.81, -26%

,rads,

I was thinking about those $700k-800k condos in Carlsbad 'caverns', and wondering how anybody could justify buying them @ a more reasonable price of say, $400k, as Jim the Realtor suggests.

SD's economy is based upon a few things: military, military industrial complex and tourism.

Only those employed in the military industrial complex could really justify being able to have the salary possible to afford them, and SAIC, about the largest of the local merchants of war, has moved quite a few jobs back east.

Sooner than later, we are going to run out of money and rationale for our 2-front war, and the military will be downsized tremendously. Tourism as evidenced by all of the hotels on the verge of going tits up, isn't so hot either...

traderwalt wrote:

Another reason why America is losing jobs that won't come back:

You can thank the NEA union for a lot of this; the rest of the blame goes to the parents.

Shocked. shocked by the blowout earnings of Microsoft. It's almost as if the expectations are manupulated to make anything look like great news.

Don't be fooled by the bond market. Banks are holding prices down because they can buy Treasurys with free money from the Fed.

Worse, banks' idle reserves that are available for lending reached $1 trillion last week. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said repeatedly in the past that excess reserves would run down when banks and other financial companies repaid their heavy short-term borrowing to the Fed. The borrowing has been repaid but idle reserves have increased. Once banks begin to expand loans or finance even more of the massive deficits, money growth will rise rapidly and the dollar will sink to new lows. Do we have to wait for a crisis before we replace promises with effective restraint?

U.K.: Recession Not Over

rps wrote:

So has Jim the Realtor been approached by Fox or Viacom as the real Reality Show? Americans thrive on misery of their fellow neighbors.

You make us sound like Germans!

Cinco, ya gotta admit it would be a big hit and what a money maker! If only I was in show biz I'd be a gazillionaire. Making money the old fashion way via human misery transformed into the american dream.

wrong thread